1⁵ᵀ Epsilon eSports (140 points)
2ᴺᴰ Team Infused (127 points)
3ᴿᴰ Crack Clan (114 points)
4ᵀᴴ 1 Team Yoyotech (100 points)
5ᵀᴴ 2 Karnage eSports (68 points)
6ᵀᴴ 2 Tryharders (54 points)
7ᵀᴴ Last Man Standing (46 points)
8ᵀᴴ Equilibrium (45 points)
9ᵀᴴ Punchline (39 points)
10ᵀᴴ Quarantine (37 points)

Greg — Fifteen votes will go into each month’s rankings, ten of which are from the previous month’s top ten teams, and five of which are from our panel members, who will vote every month. The points system remains simple: a first place vote earns that team 10 points, 9 points are awarded for second place, and so on. The numbers in parentheses refer to the specific team’s ranking in the previous Month.

Continue reading to find out who the panel members are, and see their thoughts and opinions on this month’s rankings.

The Panelists

Xavier "CommanderX" Hardy

Xavier is making his debut as a top ten panellist, stepping in for Mr Champagne who is still AWOL this month.

Currently teamless, he still believes he can pull the strings inside the top of the European scene, thanks to his keen nose for gossip, intrigue and his subtle hints on PirateRadio.

“Epsilon had a poor month by their standards dropping 2/4 maps but one was to CrackClan and the Jewraelis and friends are my favourites, so no complaints there. They also dropped a freight map and while 3 points is 3 points it is like back when you did athletics at school and you did javelin and you were the worst at javelin. Like it kinda sucks that you’re bad at it but on the other hand one gives a fuck cos it’s javelin and no one cares about javelin.

Infused did slightly better in terms of points so get second while CrackClan stay in third. CrackClan are going through a slump atm and even in this slump in form they are good enough to beat anyway outside Epsi and Infs they will need to sort themselves out by play-off time or risk breaking my heart.

YYT won all their games this month [They played one]. Despite this neither here nor there result they are undoubtedly the next big thing and if anyone is going to break the oligopoly. They have a great balance of talent, knowledge, experience and when Kaidus actually has a good connection they can turn some heads.
The we have the dysfunctional families of Prem, Karnage and Tryharders.Karnage lost less (Only once3 compared to Tryharders 3) on the other hand both teams lost every game they played. So I guess Karnage get the higher placing for losing less points…

Now for the best of the rest. Equilibrium racked up 2 wins and despite losing 2 Golden Cap rounds to Quarantine I still believe they are the strongest team in Div1. An opinion I know I’m not alone in. Meanwhile follow them up wining all their games, including an impressive 5-0 on Goooolywash vs Fagantine [Quarantine]. Speaking of Fagantine they lose out any place in the top10 from me this week from their Golden Cap play vs ISIS were after winning mid on Granary they held as passively as possible with equal ubers and basically that is low as f***. Like it is embarrassing to watch as a fan of TF2, I am unaware of how they won their other Golden Cap wins but I hope to god it was not in the same fashion.

Decerto come in next racking up 2 wins but were far less convincing and they lost out to Eq as well. There is promise in the Decerto line-up, oronoc and r7an are two underrated players and if they could sort out their tendency to collapse on certain maps out. They could really be a team to watch out for in the Div1 play-offs? (Is that a thing? Or do we just promote the top how ever many teams??)

Final shout out to Punchline (formerly BLAST) for winning Insa LAN and having solid results in ETF2L. Shame what happened with BLAST, who have no picked up Girafe, but a solid Div1 team. Ps CaptainHax is my hero!”

 

Gregory "Greg" Bushell

Greg is the resident superstar scout on the panel, having risen through the ranks with his fellow Brits at Team Infused. He also has been known to lend his vocal talents to shoutcasting and is universally known as being a ‘lovely guy’.

His biggest claim to fame is that he has proven to the tf2 community at large that he can offclass as demo with the very best of them – destroying all comers at i44 with absolute ease, oh and he also held a champions league trophy but that isn’t nearly as awesome.

“ETF2L Season 11 kicks off for real, Infused top the table, but Epsilon still take top spot for February, thanks to the win against CrackClan and draw against Infused, with the later coming second, meaning an unchanged top3.

The rest of Prem: 2 folds, sad to see a depleted Prem get slowly worse, a win for Yoyotech and a losses for the other two. Yoyotech take fourth currently looking like a very strong team aiming to grab that last playoff spot and progress towards the top3 next month.  My surprise top10 team Punchline, formerly BLAST, win InsaLAN which rates higher than losing all your Prem games, the way Tryharders and Karnage did and so take 5th.  Those two mentioned teams Tryharders and Karnage rank up next in that order, due to a lack-luster month, and will have to fight it out to find out who will/if either end the season on a goose egg.

Finishing off my top10 is tough, with the majority of the division 1 teams taking points and maps off each other.  The surprise currently unbeaten LMS top this ladder, with quarantine and equilibrium following in that order, however don’t count out Decerto and unexist, both looking like they may replace these teams next month.”

 

Peder "crouton" Holterman Solland

Crouton is the new kid on the block both in our panel and to the Team Fortress Scene thanks to the free-to-play initiative.

Don’t let his free-2-play title scare you though, he is a rising star amongst the newly Prem team; Karnage eSports, where he can be found stealing frags off his scout partner.

“What a fine month of TF2, the season’s most important game has been played and Infused has had their showdown with Epsilon. Now we all know how the game went with Epsilon taking Gullywash and Infused taking Freight. I will still put Epsilon on top as they won an actual map while Infused took Freight. Crack Clan gets my third after their close games versus Epsilon where they won a golden cap on Snakewater and lost Gullywash.

Yoyotech is the only other prem team with a win this month with their win versus Tryhards on Gullywash and Snakewater where they won decidedly 8-3 and 5-0. When we go further down the list stuff gets more interesting with Broder losing to Infused, Karnage losing to CC and Tryhards losing to the top 3.  Based off this and our recent lineup changes I’d put Broder above Karnage on the 5th spot as they lost to the better team, Tryhards comes under this as they have three losses to Epsilon, Infused and CC.

Now as we enter Division 1 land with teams like LMS, Quarantine, Equilibrium and Decerto who have all done well lately. Last Man Standing comes in at 8th on my list as they’re first in the division and beat Quarantine handily on Gullywash with a 5-0 and a 2-1 on Freight.  I’ve decided to sort the last spots by internal matches and as Quarantine beat Equilibrium who beat Decerto I’ve given my 9th spot to Quarantine through their close game versus Equilibrium on Badlands and Snakewater where they won both maps with one point.  The final spot in my list belongs to Portuguese men of Equilibrium as they’ve beaten both Decerto and La Girafe in the last month. They somehow went from winning 1-0 on Gullywash to winning 4-0 on Freight against Decerto and going from 1-0 on Snakewater to 5-0 on Gullywash against La Girafe, unstable play or just lack of warmup for the men with a system where the competing influences are balanced.”

 

James J. "Admirable" McDonnell

James is the ex-(fore)head of TF2 coverage at Cadred turned VanillaTF2 staffer; a long time community enthusiasist and LAN slut.

James has played in the Irish national team and much-loved coolclan in the past, although remains mysteriously unclanned at present despite his irrefutable skills.

His favourite colour is green and his favourite hat is the Cheater’s Lament.

“Team Infused did well to engineer a draw against their closest rivals, Epsilon eSports, in their ETF2L Premiership fixture.  Although they have managed to narrow the gap, Infused will remain second best for another month with Slick’s little stars still shining that bit brighter.  Crack Clan continue to stake their claim as contenders for the title with an uncomfortably close game against Epsilon.  Similarly, the return of that elusive team glue known as Hat for Team YoYoTech will allow them to lay claim the fourth spot without contention.

Tryharders managed to take a few rounds with their balls out aggression, but neither they nor Karnage eSports managed to make an impact in the Premiership standings in February.
So it’s unsurprising that Division 1 is proving to be more interesting than the Premiership with Equilibrium, Quarantine, Decerto and Last Man Standing being involved in some sort of bizarre love quadrangle, trading wins and loses with gay abandon.

Throw BLAST in the mixer there with their cash money win at InsaLAN in their native France and that should just about do it?”

 

Jason "kaidus" Allan

Jason completes our panel again this month. Many of you will know him as the outspoken debate junkie from the ETF2L forums turned Cadred (non-)contributor, but he’s a nice guy really!

His biggest claim to fame is that he once played in the same team as Admirable at LAN. Fortunately he is able to play TF2 once more, and you can now find him rocking huge airshots for Team Yoyotech.

“Unsurprisingly february saw no change to the top 3. Having taken the lion’s share of the points vs Crack Clan, Epsilon’s meeting with Infused saw the match play out in typical fashion with Epsilon dominating the first map, and Infused dragging themselves through the mud to scrape a victory on the second. Had it been a cup-rules affair, it’s hard to imagine that the third map wouldn’t have fit the mould of basically ever cup final for as long as anyone can remember.

Meanwhile, YoYotech took a lag-free and asuch convincing victory over tryharders who stink up the middle of the rankings having taken a dismal -24 rounds over 3 matches (10[34]). A pretty piss-poor statistic by anyones standards, it’s fair to say.

In division 1, LMS sneak up asif out of nowhere to put shame to their toughest of peers with a convincing victory over promotion rivals Quarantine. Equilibirum sit lower in the rankings than they probably deserve having lost out in a close contest to Qn, but all three teams currently sit at a very similar level and could potentially shine a light on the delapidated premier division in seasons to come.

Also props to BLAST for winning LAN.”

You’ll be able to catch more thoughts from our panel with VanillaTF2′s March Rankings in a few weeks time!